[PREFACE.]
I begin the history of the Royal Institution, and its professors to the time of Faraday, with the life of its founder, Count Rumford, because his career and character determined its original form. I have written short accounts of the earliest professors because the spirit that has shown itself in them has up to this time been the life of the Institution. Dr. Garnett and Dr. Thomas Young had comparatively little influence there, because the founder took the most active part in the establishment of his Institution; but when Count Rumford and Sir Joseph Banks had left and Mr. Bernard and Sir John Hippesley were the leading managers, Professor Davy gradually became the main supporter of the place, and to him chiefly it owes the form which it now retains.
During the last half-century the name of Faraday has been so blended with that of the Royal Institution that few people know what Davy made it; and fewer still have heard what Rumford at first intended it to be.
The following account will show that the Institution owes its origin entirely to Rumford, and would certainly have failed but for Davy. Moreover, it will be seen that before Faraday came there, it had been the home of Dr. Garnett and of Dr. Thomas Young; Dr. Dalton had lodged and lectured for weeks there; Sydney Smith, Coleridge, Sir James Smith, Dibden, Dr. Crotch, Campbell, Landseer, Opie, and Flaxman had also lectured there; Sir Joseph Banks and Mr. Cavendish had been managers, and Dr. Wollaston and Dr. Jenner had been members.
I have searched everywhere to find new or forgotten facts about the Institution.
For the sketch of the founder I owe much to the Rev. Dr. G. E. Ellis, of Boston, who has lately written the Life of Rumford for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I have found many despatches and letters relating to Rumford in the manuscripts of the American War now in the library of the Royal Institution, and in the unpublished correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, in the archives of the Foreign Office, and in the State Paper Office.
Not the least strange fact in the history of this original man is that during his life he received no thanks for all that he did for the Royal Institution. Moreover at the present time he is scarcely known as the finder of Davy and the founder of that place where very many of the greatest scientific discoveries of this century have been made.